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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26730859">Her Eyes, Blue as the Heavens Above</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/madradena/pseuds/AlexaHorn'>AlexaHorn (madradena)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:35:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,668</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26730859</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/madradena/pseuds/AlexaHorn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Valentin, a young artist from Russia, lives in Vienna during WWI. He suffers from the cruelty of his impressario, Yuriy, who's also his brother. Valentin has to face the sins of the past in order to start a new slate.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Her Eyes, Blue as the Heavens Above</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>1916 – Vienna</em>
</p><p>Valentin was watching the clouds swimming lazily across the clear sky. They were perfect. Unique and short-lived like any creature of God, yet, they stretched on into an existance of eternity, claiming the heavens over and over again. He smiled drawing a deep breath of the cold air, the smell of winter pierced right into his lungs. The sensation was freedom itself. He felt the snow melt under his bare palms. <em>Now, I am spring!</em> The sun sparkled blindingly, but he only noticed how much, when he gingerly sat up, and all he could see was the sun blacking out the center of his vision. He blinked his tears away and stood.</p><p>He dusted the snow off his wet coat and rubbed his palms together to warm his stiff fingers. He looked out ahead at the trees. The woods of the Prater seemed to swallow the small clearing he was standing in. The trees stretched their bare branches toward the skies, and Valentin raised his hands to look at his fingertips dipping into the clear blue nothingness. When his arms became numb, he lowered them to his side.</p><p>It was time to go home. He was late already. Yuriy would be angry again. <em>But maybe… maybe if he sees on the canvas what I saw here, he’d understand!</em> He hurried his steps and caught a Fiaker.</p><p>He pushed in the door with a measure of anticipation just to find the flat empty. Yuriy was not home yet. The relief he felt over his discovery was instantly followed by a burning shame. He stumbled to the window and opened it. The stale air of the room was slowly replaced by the smoke of the city. One was no better than the other, both choked his throat. He looked out over the view of Vienna spreading underneath the fifth floor window. It was the home of culture still. Even the curse of the war couldn’t mark it with its rotting teeth.</p><p>He closed the window abruptly. The clouds! Yes, he needed to paint the clouds before Yuriy got home.</p><p>He rushed into his studio. He didn’t even bother with changing clothes, he just prepared the palette and the canvas and started painting. Time seemed to flow on into fluidity. Everything became a blur. Only he existed and his creation.</p><p>He stepped away from the painting still gasping from the effort of concentration. He wiped the bead of sweat rolling down his forehead and smeared the paint on his skin. There. It was done.</p><p>“What is this?” he heard from behind and turned to see Yuriy. His hunching figure looked the usual daggers at him.</p><p>Valentin smiled and stepped away from the canvas, “I saw them today. I had to paint them,” he breathed.</p><p>Yuriy’s forehead creased, “What the hell is this?” he rasped and shuffled up to the painting with a limp in his step.</p><p>“The heavens,” Valentin whispered in awe – and then finally saw how Yuriy was looking at the painting… The colors of the room drained, enveloping him into a yawning blackness.</p><p>“These are just clouds, you moron!” Yuriy swirled around. “Don’t tempt my patience, brother! The canvas and the paint cost an arm and a leg, and you’re wasting them on clouds?!” His voice rose with every uttered word, and Valentin wished that the ground would open under him so Yuriy wouldn’t have to put up with his infantilism anymore.</p><p>Yuriy towered above him and Valentin bowed his head “I’m sorry, Yuriy…”</p><p>“There’s a war going on out there! People are nervous. They don’t need clouds. They need savagery. They need blood and chaos! How many times have I told you?!”</p><p>“Many,” Valentin said nodding. Yuriy was right. He kept saying this since forever. He was right. “I’m sorry, Yuriy.”</p><p>“Nah… How many times have I heard that already? You’re a good-for-nothing, and always were! Without me, you’d be out there. You’d be dead in a trench and rats would be feeding on your soul if it wasn’t for me!”</p><p>Valentin raised his head sharply at that. “I know, Yuriy, I’m sorry… I-I’ll paint something over it,” he offered stumbling over his words.</p><p>Yuriy smirked satisfied. “That’s more like what I wanted to hear. Set to it right now!”</p><p>“But it’s already midnight-”</p><p>“I said set to it!”</p><p>Valentin swallowed and stepped up to the painting as Yuriy shuffled out. Shortly, he could hear his snoring. He looked at his precious clouds. Somehow they all turned to gray. He wet his brushes and set to creating something meaningful out of his nonsense.</p><hr/><p>“Valentin! This is wonderful!” Ernst, the owner of the gallery, said clasping his hands in front of his chest. It was the most spacious hall of the gallery, and on the walls, only Valentin Nikolaev’s paintings hung.</p><p>Valentin smiled blushing, “You really like it?”</p><p>Ernst’s thin lips stretched into an enormous smile. “Like it? I love it! Adore it! Those mountains and the river! Exquisite!”</p><p>Valentin’s smile disappeared, and he nodded. “You’re too kind, Ernst.” He took his eyes off the clouds, the background of the painting, and met the gaze of his friend. “Would you like to have it?” he asked in a small voice.</p><p>Ernst opened his mouth, but before he could answer, they heard another voice. “Don’t take him seriously, Ernst. He keeps on joking all the time.” Yuriy shuffled up to them, leaning onto his elegant walking stick. He laughed a deep, raspy laugh. “Valentin never considers how he’d pay for the brushes and canvases, when he offers all his pictures for free. Right?”</p><p>Valentin gazed at him for a long moment, the words just didn’t want to form on his crippled tongue. He then nodded. What was he thinking? He turned back to Ernst “Forgive me, Ernst! I was inconsiderate.”</p><p>“Oh, never mind, my friend. It was an honor that you offered.”</p><p>“You are more than generous,” Valentin whispered.</p><p>“Ernst, I need you for a moment here,” Yuriy said. “The exhibition opens tomorrow, but the other room is only half-way done. Your employees don’t seem to know the difference between left and right and up and down. Please.”</p><p>“Alright, alright, I’ll look after it.” Ernst turned back to Valentin. “If you could excuse me, my dear talented friend, I’d leave you here with your thoughts for a moment.”</p><p>Valentin nodded. “Please, go ahead. And thank you,” he added, but the two men were out of earshot for his whisper.</p><p>He looked around in the empty hall and took in a long breath. That tight, black fist in his chest that kept on churning his insides all the time loosened its grip now that he was all alone with his paintings.</p><p>He turned back to his clouds. The sky at the top of the painting remained blue, the clouds, white as the fur of a new-born sheep. The rest turned into bruise-purple and blood-red as the sun dipped under the horizon behind the mountains. He slid his gaze back to the blue.</p><p>“I like the clouds the most,” he heard suddenly from behind and for an instant, thought that only his nonsensical mind played a trick with him.</p><p>He turned with a slight frown of confusion and saw <em>her</em>.</p><p>She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever lay his eyes upon. Even God couldn’t have created that kind of perfection. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even breathe. Time stopped – but somehow in the stillness of the eternity between moments, she managed to move. She stepped, floated, hovered above the ground, right opposite him and gazed into his unworthy eyes. The reflection of her soul – blue, as the heavens above.</p><p>He wanted to fall to his knees, and kiss the edge of her skirt, but then he suddenly realized how dumbly he must have been staring at her. He took a frightened step back, his shoulder encountering the wall.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Herr Nikolaev, I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said with a tiny smile.</p><p>His mouth moved for a few moments before any sound left his lips. “I-I’m sorry, Frau-”</p><p>Her smile widened – her lips were full and red. “Albertin, Regina Albertin. And Fraulein, not Frau. Yet.”</p><p>“Fraulein Albertin… so… so you’re related perhaps to Ernst.”</p><p>She nodded. “I’m his younger sister, Herr Nikolaev. I’m very pleased to meet you. Ernst told me all about you, sir.”</p><p>The blood drained from his cheeks – whatever his ever-so-kind friend could have told this creature of heaven, he surely could never live up to it!</p><p>She seemed to notice his embarrassment. “Please, don’t worry. Maybe the worst trait he listed was that you’re overtly shy for the talent you have. And I can’t help but agree.” She motioned to the pictures spreading her arms. “Care to show me around, Herr Nikolaev?”</p><p>He nodded, not being able to tear his gaze off her.</p><p>As they strolled slowly around the room, his weak knees slowly grew strength, and by the time they finished their slow circle, he felt he didn’t need so worldly body parts as knees or legs. He grew wings.</p><p>They stopped at the painting where they’d started, and Regina gazed at the clouds wistfully.</p><p>“Why did you paint over them?” she asked suddenly.</p><p>His lips parted. “How can you tell I have?”</p><p>She flicked her gaze over to his eyes then back to the painting. “I studied art myself.” She turned to him, and he couldn’t help but answer honestly.</p><p>“My brother told me to.”</p><p>“Why?” she asked.</p><p>“Because there’s a war and people expect-”</p><p>“No! I didn’t mean that. I meant why did you comply if you knew it was not the right thing to do?”</p><p>It was as if one of God’s angels descended just to hold him accountable for his sin, and he was tempted to say, <em>“Forgive me, for I have erred…”</em></p><p>“Yuriy… he knows well what sells,” he said instead, bowing his head.</p><p>She nodded, her eyes gazed into mid-distance. “Is that what’s important to you, Herr Nikolaev? What sells?” her voice was distant, almost as if she spoke only to herself.</p><p>He felt a sudden wave of desperation welling up. “No, by all means, no, Regina! Please… please, believe me.”</p><p>She turned her face up to him and after an eternity, smiled. “I knew it,” she whispered. “When I saw you, I knew it.”</p><p>His heart drummed against his chest, and the room was spinning on an insane speed. Still he wasn’t disoriented. He stared right into her eyes, and they proved to be anchors to his stray soul.</p><p>She smiled holding out her hand, “It was nice talking to you, Herr Nikolaev. Valentin.”</p><p>He took her laced hand in his as if he held the hand of the most fragile china doll. He bent and breathed a kiss onto her knuckles, his lips over her skin, the touch of a feather.</p><p>Before he could utter a word of farewell, she was gone.</p><hr/><p>“Have you never thought about changing your impressario?” Ernst asked as they were walking through the manicured park of Schönbrunn. The richly ornamented yellow walls of the palace were bathed in the delightful sunshine of the afternoon. And the clouds played tag above it cheerfully.</p><p>Valentin turned his head to his friend, “It’s impossible, you know that,” he said with a knowing smile. Ernst sometimes brought this subject up, no matter how many times he had said no.</p><p>“Why?” Ernst asked. “Just because Yuriy is your brother? He’d stay your brother if someone else managed your works, you know. He’d stay your brother if you moved to the moon, too.”</p><p>Valentin let out a short breath. “Yuriy needs me. You know about his… his condition…”</p><p>“Yes, I know. And I’m well aware of your remorse over it. But you need to move on to live your own life. The way you want to live it.”</p><p>Valentin shook his head gazing ahead. The clouds darkened, and they enfolded the palace in a gray shadow. “It’s impossible,” he repeated.</p><p>Ernst suddenly stopped and looked him in the eye. “Even if I told you I wouldn’t only welcome you as a protéger, but also as a family member?”</p><p>Valentin stared into his friend’s eyes gaping. What… What…</p><p>Ernst’s lips quirked up in mischief. “Do you think I don’t see how you look at my sister?” He chuckled softly. “Oh, don’t feel abashed, my young friend. I know the face of love. I married a woman whom I loved myself, this is not the nineteenth century. You can marry whom your heart chooses.”</p><p>They started walking again. Valentin viewed the creaking pebbles underneath his shoes through water. Marry. Marry. Marry her! That was not possible! It was not possible that she’d want any such thing. From someone like him…</p><p>And as if to answer his unvoiced doubts, Ernst said, “I talked to her.” He turned his head to catch Valentin’s gaze. He chuckled at the anxious look. “Well, let’s just say she was not entirely averse of the idea.”</p><p>Valentin stopped walking. His legs felt like giving up supporting his weight. His throat closed, and he kept wiping the wetness of his palm to the pocket of his suit.</p><p>Ernst gazed into his eyes with a serious look, and gently touched his arm. “Don’t miss the opportunity for happiness because of imagined crimes of the past. Start a new slate and live, my friend.”</p><hr/><p>Valentin became aware that he was running as fast as his muscles and tendons allowed. He had no memory of saying goodbye to Ernst or of the route he took to leave Schönbrunn. His mouth was open, his tongue felt swollen and hot, and he kept crushing blindly into the people in the street.</p><p>By the time he got home, all he had strength for was to collapse on the steps leading to the gate of the house. He laid his forehead into his palms and watched as his vision cleared for an instant, and two tiny teardrops dissolved in the puddle the spring shower had left. His hair and clothes were soaking wet, and he shook with cold, or with a sudden fever. He didn’t know which.</p><p>In his mind’s eye, he saw an infant, he felt his mother’s naked embrace, the taste of milk… And he heard the shouting, the weeping of his mother, the inconsolable crying of a young child, hurt… And he heard her telling him, it was your fault! Only <em>yours</em>!</p><p>A soundless sob rippled through him. And now, he was ready to leave the man whose misery he had caused. Just out of selfishness. Of looking for happiness. How would Yuriy look for happiness, if he’d deprived him of the opportunity so long ago?</p><p>He staggered to his feet and wiped his cheeks. Yuriy would tell him off for crying and for staying out in the rain. But he deserved it. Yuriy was always looking out for him, and he never was grateful enough. He turned, and it took all his remaining strength to push in the heavy gate.</p><p>“Yuriy,” he whispered stepping in their common home. There was no answer, and he opened the door to his studio. He stopped short in the doorway.</p><p>Yuriy was standing at his closet, around its door, there were all his paintings of Regina. All that he’d kept a secret from Yuriy.</p><p>He gazed at her face, his clumsy strokes on a canvas just couldn’t do justice to her beauty. He tore his gaze away from the painting to meet Yuriy’s eyes, and time started to flow again.</p><p>“What is this?!” Yuriy demanded.</p><p>Valentin staggered a step inside. “Please, Yuriy…”</p><p>Yuriy took a smaller picture in his hand. “Please? You say please? What are you asking for, ha? This little tart?” He raised his limping knee up and broke the thin frame in two like a dry twig. The canvas tore with an ominous ripping sound.</p><p>“Yuriy, stop,” Valentin uttered, rooted to the floor.</p><p>“Stop? You want me to stop? What did you think I would do when I find out? Congratulate you, you ungrateful little brat?! I nurtured you, I turned you into the artist you are today – I forgave you! When I should have drowned you in your bath when you were an infant for what you did to me! And now you’re betraying me?!”</p><p>“I’m not betraying you, Yuriy!” Valentin cried.</p><p>“No?! So what is this?”</p><p>“This?” Valentin breathed. “This is just a dream…”</p><p>“A dream!” Yuriy shuffled over to him tossing the two half of the painting to the floor. “Remember, brother, you don’t have the right to dream when you took away the dreams of another!”</p><p>“Stop it, Yuriy… I can’t take more…”</p><p>“No?!” Yuriy shook him by the arm to make him look at him. “So you need a reminder maybe? How many times did our mother told us the tale?”</p><p>“I know it, Yuriy, she told me every night!”</p><p>“You were born,” Yuriy started, and Valentin shook his head wishing he was deaf, but Yuriy knew no mercy, “and our mother had no other concern only <em>you</em>! She even forgot about her three-year-old first born! She just cared about your needs! And you kept on crying incessantly! We had no days, no nights! You cried, and she was there, holding you, feeding you! While I was climbing over the windowsill and fell two floors! You took my mother! You took my health, and you took all my chances for a life. So don’t stand there, and say this is just a dream! It’s the token of your betrayal!”</p><p>Valentin fell to his knees, his shoulders shook with his sobs. He knew he was guilty on all accounts his brother had listed. And yet, his heart still resonated with what Ernst told him. “She was not averse of the idea – start a new slate, and live!” He turned his face to Yuriy. His brother stood there hunched, with his foot twisted unnaturally, his craggy features hard and stone-cold. And the image tore him apart into a thousand tiny pieces.</p><p>All of a sudden a lopsided grin spread over Yuriy’s lips. “Hmm, there’s an idea. That little tart is looking for a husband. I might not be the most favorable candidate. But fortunately, being an impressario always pays better than being an artist.” He looked straight into Valentin’s eyes. “I doubt Ernst would say no to the money I can put into a marriage.”</p><p>“No, you couldn’t…”</p><p>“Oh, yes I could!” Yuriy roared. “If you have the right to consider marriage, would you deny the right from your brother? That little slut is an eye-catcher alright, mmm…” He licked his upper lip with the tip of his tongue. “She’d make an obedient wife.” He started for the door. “No point in wasting the time. I go and pay a visit to the Albertins right away.”</p><p>“No!” Valentin shouted and lunged after his brother.</p><p>All he could think of was stopping him. To stand between him and her, between a creature from hell and a creature from heaven. He clasped his arms around his brother from behind – the only hug they ever shared. The burly man then staggered to the side, and his one good leg couldn’t bear the burden of the two of them. They fell to the ground, and Valentin didn’t even feel the sharp pain in his head. He simply fell into a bottomless pit.</p><hr/><p>A soft bed underneath him. A warm duvet covered his burning body. A gentle stroke on his brow. And slowly, reality returned. It was cold. Chilling cold.</p><p>“No… Regina… No…” he breathed.</p><p>“Sssh…” he heard, another cool stroke on his forehead. “Hush, don’t talk.”</p><p>His eyelids fluttered, and he tried to make sense of the world through his long lashes. Where was he? Who was here with him? He shut his eyes, consciousness slipping away again.</p><p>“You have fever,” he heard. “You need to rest.” He tried to focus all his strength into opening his eyes.</p><p>He must have been dead, he thought, for only a few inches from his face, Regina’s gentle features formed. He shut his eyes. The tight fist in his chest stabbed a long dagger into his heart.</p><p>“Did you… marry him?” he mumbled, the words running together. His thoughts running together.</p><p>“Marry who?” she asked on a whisper still stroking his forehead with a wet piece of cloth.</p><p>“Yuriy…”</p><p>“Yu-” she suddenly laughed a musical, angelic laugh.</p><p>The bed rocked under him, and he knew she sat close to him, he could feel the roundness of her hips next to his waist through the thick duvet. He felt her palm on his forehead, and he opened his eyes again. Regina took his hand and bowing her head, planted a soft kiss on his knuckles.</p><p>“The only man I ever intend to marry is here, next to me. If I can’t marry him, I’ll die a spinster.”</p><p>Valentin swallowed hard and tried to frown, but his temple hurt.</p><p>She stroked his wet hair. “You hit your head badly. You’re in hospital. They stitched your wound, but your fever spiked the following night. This was three days ago.”</p><p>He searched her eyes scared. “What of Yuriy?” he asked on a breaking voice.</p><p>She glanced down at their entwined hands. “He left… He left when Ernst made him face his mishandling of your money. Two days ago. He took everything from the flat. All he left was a ripped winter coat.” She shook her head, compassion written all over her face. “I know, you love him very much, but… he left…”</p><p>His eyes became misty as he turned to the ceiling. His vision blurred, and the moldy patches turned into gray clouds. The gray clouds that shadowed Schönbrunn when Ernst told him: “Start a new slate and live,” he said the words aloud.</p><p>He turned his head to look into her eyes, blue as the heavens above, and finally let his soul revel in redemption.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Inspired by the life of ballet dancer Vaclav Nizhinskiy.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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